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Friday, 10 February 2012

Chronodex update

I've been meaning to update after my last post for a while - but every time I nearly did - another little tweak presented itself. Finally I think it's just about perfect. For those of you who don't know - the Chronodex was designed by Patrick Ng over at Scription and looks like this:

As soon as I saw it I knew it was going to suit me but as I've been using it I've gradually changed it (I'm still using stickers though). My day is a long one and although the original allowed me to cover 24 hours - I found the format a little distracting. I was using the inner part for daytime and the outer for evening as seen here:

I decided to alter it to make actual rings for day and evening. It has gone through a few changes but finally looks like this:

I decided to have a central ring to add reminders of specific things I have to do. e.g. below at 9 am I needed to make a phone call:

The above works as follows: 9 am - 5.30 I was working on studio-sweeping stuff (pink), 5.30 - 8 p.m. I was doing a shift at our pub (blue) and then 8.30 pm - 1 am I was in my studio (turquiose). (Luckily when I do a tea time shift my husband has my tea ready for me when I finish so I don't have to waste time cooking!!). The striped area represents a specific activity which I need to time. If I'm making new stock or doing orders and need to work out how long it takes I have different patterns so I can see at a glance how my time is being spent. I generally shift to the outer ring after tea. It is the best system I have ever used (and I've tried lots!) I'm finding that it is focusing me on each area and I'm not getting distracted as easily. I can't really have a 5 minute slot - so I am tending to spend blocks of time rather than jumping about between different areas. Best of all. it gives me an immediate visual indication of whether I'm spending enough time in my studio!